Rockets star James Harden nears third straight NBA scoring title

If Harden stays at his current 34.4 points per game clip, No. 2 scorer Bradley Beal must average 61.6 points in Florida to pass him.

Barring a historic run or collapse to finish the 2019-20 regular season, Houston Rockets guard James Harden is poised to lead the NBA in scoring for a third straight year. No NBA player has accomplished that feat since Kevin Durant, who did it from 2009-10 through 2011-12.

With the regular season shortened due to the league’s COVID-19 hiatus, all NBA teams will only have eight games remaining when they report to the neutral “bubble” site near Orlando in July.

If Harden stays at his current average of 34.4 points per game, the No. 2 scorer — Washington’s Bradley Beal, at 30.5 — would have to average 61.6 points per game over those eight contests to pass Harden.

That’s quite unlikely, to say the least. To put it in perspective, Beal’s career high in any one game is 55 points.

Harden’s current campaign is just the third time in over 30 years that an NBA player has averaged at least 34 points in a season. (The other two were Harden’s 36.1 last season and Kobe Bryant’s 35.4 in 2005-06.)

Over his eight seasons to date in Houston, Harden has earned All-Star honors in all of them while leading his Rockets to the playoffs. The future Hall of Famer was the NBA’s 2017-18 MVP and a three-time MVP runner-up, and he appears poised for another top-three MVP finish this season.

Later this summer, “The Beard” should add a third scoring title to his long and still growing list of career honors with the Rockets.

[lawrence-related id=31749,31621]